Medicine & Health

Bernard Becker, MD, professor emeritus of ophthalmology and visual sciences at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, died Wednesday Aug. 28, 2013, after a long illness. He was 93.

​Graduates of the Community Research Fellows Training program learn the language of academic researchers and how the two groups can work together to improve community health. Shown are recent graduates at a ceremony to recognize the achievement.

Here’s a sobering fact for millions of young women:  The more alcohol they drink before motherhood, the greater their risk of future breast cancer. School of Medicine research links increased breast cancer to drinking between early adolescence and first full-term pregnancy.

The Spotlight on Women in Medicine and Science will be held from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 18, on the Washington University Medical Center campus.

​Created 60 years ago, the Assembly Series is Washington University’s premiere lecture series. Its chief mission is to present interesting and important voices, and it is designed to spark meaningful discussion and lead to greater understanding of our world today. Assembly Series programs are free and open to the public. The fall 2013 schedule, below, opens with First Year Reading Program author Eula Biss on September 9.​​​

Luis Sanchez, MD, the Gregorio A. Sicard Distinguished Professor of Vascular Surgery and chief of the section of vascular surgery at the School of Medicine, discusses his work and how his family history influenced him toward medicine.

School of Medicine scientists have found a way that corrupted, disease-causing proteins spread in the brain, potentially contributing to Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and other brain-damaging disorders. Pictured are clumps of corrupted tau protein outside a nerve cell, as seen through an electron micrograph.

Part of the risk for alcohol dependence is genetic. The same is true for eating disorders. Now, School of Medicine researchers have found that some of the same genes likely are involved in both. They report that people with alcohol dependence may be more genetically susceptible to certain types of eating disorders and vice versa.

The School of Medicine has received a $7.8 million grant to determine whether the length of time red blood cells (RBCs) are stored affects organ failure in critically ill children who receive RBC transfusions. Pictured is Philip Spinella, MD, one of study’s principal investigators, with Ronald Jackups, MD, PhD, in the blood bank at St. Louis Children’s Hospital.

In patients with early Alzheimer’s disease, disruptions in brain networks emerge about the same time as chemical markers of the disease appear in the spinal fluid, School of Medicine researchers have shown. Pictured is senior author of the study, Beau Ances, MD, PhD, associate professor of neurology and of biomedical engineering.